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Arizona wildfire

Weather aids fight against Arizona wildfire

Approaching thunderstorms raise risk of winds whipping up flames

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoJulie Jacobson | Associated PressStephen Grady reads notes left at a makeshift memorial outside the Prescott, Ariz., fire station that was the base for 19 firefighters killed in a wildfire on Sunday. A 20th member, who was unhurt, is described as “very distraught.”

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By Tim Gaynor and Brad PooleReuters • Wednesday July 3, 2013 6:20 AM

PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Firefighters gained ground yesterday against the sprawling blaze in central
Arizona that killed 19 members of an elite “hotshots” crew over the weekend in the worst loss of
life in a U.S. wildfire in 80 years, officials said.

Although the fire remained dangerous and unpredictable, it was no longer burning out of control,
and fire managers reported that it was about 8 percent contained by day’s end, officials of the
fire command team said.

“We gained some ground … it’s been a pretty good day, and the fire has stayed mostly parked
where it was 24 hours ago,” said Jim Whittington, a spokesman for the incident commander.

Another command spokesman, Dennis Godfrey, said separately that the so-called Yarnell Hill fire,
burning through dense, dry brush about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, was posing no immediate
additional threat to property in the area.

Whittington said the 500 firefighters battling the blaze got a break on Monday night and
yesterday from powerful, erratic winds that earlier had stoked the fire and caused volatile changes
in its direction.

But Whittington said fire managers were concerned about thunderstorms that appeared to be moving
into the area late yesterday, bringing the risk of a renewed burst of strong, unruly winds.

The blaze, ignited on Friday by lightning, has blackened at least 8,400 acres of thick,
tinder-dry chaparral, oak scrub and grasslands as it burned largely unchecked for four days.
Authorities say 50 to 200 structures, most of them homes, have been destroyed in and near the tiny
town of Yarnell, but they said more time would be needed to accurately assess property losses.

Yarnell and the adjacent community of Peeples Valley, which together are home to roughly 1,000
people, remained evacuated. Fire incident commander Clay Templin told displaced residents at a
community meeting yesterday that despite “good progress” made against the fire, evacuees probably
would not be allowed to return to their homes before Saturday.

On Sunday, a specially trained squad of 19 firefighters known as “hotshots” died in the fire
after they were outflanked and engulfed by wind-whipped flames in a matter of seconds, before some
could scramble into their cocoon-like personal shelters.

The death toll was the worst among firefighters or civilians from a U.S. wildland blaze since at
least 25 men died battling the 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles, according to the National
Interagency Fire Center, based in Boise, Idaho.

The fallen Arizona firefighters were based in the town of Prescott, about 30 miles northeast of
the fire zone, and residents there paid tribute to the 19 men, most of them in their 20s, in a
memorial service yesterday evening.

A 20th member of the team, who was acting as the crew’s lookout at the time of the disaster and
survived unscathed, is “very distraught” and has declined to speak to the media, according to
Prescott Fire Department spokesman Wade Ward.

A makeshift shrine has sprung up outside a downtown Prescott firehouse, drawing dozens of people
who paid their respects by leaving flowers, flags, condolence cards, photos and mementos at the
site.